Big Sky Country Has Man-Made Wonders, Too

Driving north out of Idaho Falls up a turning, twisting Interstate 15 through Monida Pass in Targhee National Forest and over the Continental Divide, we came out on an open range that rolled gently on in waves as far as the eye could see under a big sky dotted by swirling clouds.

We did not need a road sign to tell us we had arrived in Montana.

We had expected the Big Sky (Montana’s slogan) accented by the low, spare landscape, and it was stunning, just as the natural wonders of Yellowstone Park and the Grand Tetons were in Wyoming. They are the enduring scenes of these classic Western states that attract millions of tourists every summer.

What we had not expected to find there were man-made wonders.

Take, for instance, Helena, Mont. Once a thriving gold-mine town with a population that in the late 19th Century ballooned to an estimated 500,000, the city has shrunk to about 25,000 to settle into a more sedate role as the state capital and an agricultural center.

But many of the remnants of the city’s halcyon days that the gold had bought remain. They include some substantial turn-of-the-century buildings in a downtown area called Last Chance Gulch, above which stands a proud fire tower built in 1876; a dated mining community nearby known as Reeder’s Alley and recycled into a friendly complex of shops and restaurants, and a smattering of impressive Victorian homes.

Governor’s Mansion

One of the more substantial homes, the original governor’s mansion at 304 N. Ewing, is open to the public (Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m., free). It was built for an avaricious merchant in 1888 and subsequently served as a home for a railroad and then a mining magnate before becoming the official governor’s residence in 1913.

The three-story brick, gabled structure, furnished with select period pieces, exudes an air of Montana’s rough-and-tumble past. You can almost smell the cigar smoke there, taste the hard liquor and hear echoes of deals being made.

A few blocks away, at 6th and Montana streets, is the state capitol, an imposing neoclassical design clad in local granite and topped by a dome of local copper. The building is a proud structure that hints at the wealth of the state at the turn of the century when it was built.

Among the attractions in the building’s ornate interior is Charles Russell’s largest painting, a 12-by-25-foot rendering of “Lewis and Clark Meeting the Flathead Indians at Ross’ Hole.” (Guided tours of the capitol are offered every day on the hour from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. until Labor Day, Monday through Friday the rest of the year.)

Family Connection

Both the building and the painting were of particular interest to my wife; her mother was raised on the Flathead reservation and her grandfather cut the stone for the capitol’s facade.

For Russell fans, an impressive collection of his sketches and paintings are on view across the street in the Montana Historical Society Museum at 225 N. Roberts. Also there is an engaging, well-mounted display of the works of frontier photographer F. Jay Haynes. (The museum is open every day and is a good place to pick up brochures of the area’s historic attractions.)

Another man-made landmark is the Archie Bray Foundation, a complex of pottery studios and a gallery centered in a recycled brickyard a few miles west of Helena (off U.S. 12 on Joslyn Avenue, which becomes Country Club Avenue). Established in 1951, the complex is a retreat of sorts for about a dozen select potters from around the world.

It is also a gold mine of ceramics. Because the pieces are produced on site without the need for packing and shipping, the prices at the foundation’s gallery (open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Mondays through Saturdays) are more than reasonable. Sarah Yaeger, one of artists in residence there, said her works offered elsewhere sell for about three times more than the $10 to $50 they go for at the gallery.

Frayed Glory

One hundred miles southeast of Helena, on the way to Yellowstone National Park, we stopped at Virginia City and Nevada City to walk along their creaking wooden sidewalks, look in at the restored and recycled retail remnants of a century ago and revel in their survival.

On display in Virginia City, in all their frayed glory, was the state’s first newspaper office, a general store replete with dated merchandise and antique tins, a brewery, a hotel and an opera house, among other establishments. The total was surprisingly evocative, helped by a hearty meal and friendly service in one of the upgraded saloons there.

Then it was on to Yellowstone, where among the marvelous natural wonders of the geysers, canyons, lakes and ranges there is, from my perspective, one of the architectural delights of the world: Old Faithful Inn, in particular the main building designed by Robert Reamer in 1902.

The rambling inn is one of the first and best examples of a graceful rustic style that uses native materials to create a so-called appropriate architecture. The style blossoms in the inn’s 85-foot-high lobby, enclosed in a spectacular web of twisted lodge poles, lined by three muscular balconies and focused on an immense fireplace decorated with a wrought-iron clock.

Given the popularity of Yellowstone and the inn, the lobby is an excellent place to watch and listen to the waves of people passing under its beams, while trying to guess where they hail from. Certainly this spot in the northwest corner of the remote state of Wyoming has to rate as one of the great crossroads of the world.

Park’s Oldest Hotel

But the oldest hotel in Yellowstone is the Lake Hotel, built in 1891 and remodeled several times. The four-story Colonial structure marked by 50-foot Ionic columns stands gracefully on the shore of Lake Yellowstone. The view from its sitting and dining rooms of the lake and mountain ranges beyond is sublime, and almost makes you overlook the slow service.

(Room rates at the hotel and inn range from $28 without bath to $52 with bath, $130 for suites. Reservations are a must during the summer and can be made by writing to TW Services, Yellowstone National Park, Wyo. 82190, or calling (307) 344-7311).

For an equally gracious, more modern man-made landmark, there is, farther south, the Spring Creek Ranch resort on the outskirts of Jackson, Wyo. Designed in an updated rustic style and clustered on a ridge, the resort provides a spectacular setting to enjoy the breathtaking views.

(Rates at the ranch range from $90 to $125 for a hotel room. Also available are apartments with kitchens for a wide variety of prices, depending on the size of the units, the number of persons and length of stay. For more information and reservations, write to Spring Creek Ranch, P.O. Box 3154, Jackson, Wyo. 83001, or call (800) 443-6139.)